AMRI: One of the best hospitals turn into a grim death place overnight

KOLKATA: Within hours of a fire killing scores of sick people at Advanced Medicare and Research Institute (AMRI) Hospitals, the Kolkata-based hospital replaced a laudatory English magazine cover on its website with a grim box detailing the casualty list.

Till early Friday, the website had a poster of the November-end issue of the weekly magazine that ranked it among the best hospitals in the country for 2011. The pre-dawn fire that swept through the seven-storey hospital building has changed that.

The death toll had risen to 90 at the time of going to the press.

Shocked and angry relatives of those killed and witnesses said fire tenders arrived late and hospital staff barred outsiders from entering to help, snuffing out any chance of saving more people. Survivors say the staff mostly tried to run away, or were busy blocking local youth from coming to the rescue. That was in the wee hours of Friday, when some more could perhaps have been saved if help had arrived timely or at least the alarm bells sounded in time.

"Why can't I take our mother's body out? You all have killed her...," two young girls screamed.

As a shocked nation tracked the news on television, ET spoke to the relatives of some people who had died in the blaze.

"We locals are never able to go inside. Who will foot the cost," asked Netai Das, a 'basti-dweller'.

"My patient was admitted here and I had already spent Rs 5 lakh on her treatment. I cared little for money. I just wanted to see my wife well. They kept doing tests, kept asking for more...was it for this?" said Aloke, as fire brigade and police officers took her body away.

A woman sitting outside AMRI said, "If Mamata Banerjee, who is also the health minister, is to take a cue from the AMRI incident, she should immediately look into the affairs of every such private healthcare facility in the city. I believe my husband is no more, but they have still not been able to show me his body. I will not budge unless I am given an answer."

Six top AMRI executives, including promoters RS Goenka of Emami Ltd and S K Todi of Shrachi, have been arrested. The promoters have announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the family of those killed. Earlier in the day, they had offered Rs 2 lakh. Emami's turnover is Rs 3,700 crore while that of Shrachi's is Rs 800 crore.

The tragedy highlights the state of the country's private healthcare system, which tends to draw allegations of graft, falling nursing standards and inflated bills. Media has widely reported incidents of medical negligence at private hospitals and of doctors pushing the more expensive varieties of antibiotics and medicines at the behest of big pharmaceutical companies.

Some such cases have even made their way to courts, such as the one filed by an NRI doctor against AMRI and three physicians for "negligence and breaching medical protocol" vis-a -vis the death of his wife in 1998.